Unplayable: Viewer Manual is a printed guide to a simulation that cannot be played. Produced in conjunction with the installation Unplayable, the manual functions as a standalone publication that explains the internal logic of a world governed entirely by non-playable characters (NPCs).

The manual introduces four NPC archetypes: Accelerationist, Conspiracy Theorist, Doomscroller, and Nihilist. Each character is driven by recognizable desires for satisfaction, rest, meaning, or validation, yet none are capable of resolving them. Their behavior unfolds through repeating cycles of work, consumption, observation, and failed rest, structured by rules that promise progress while ensuring deferral.

At the core of the simulation is a shared pursuit of what psychoanalysis calls objet petit a: the object of desire that animates action without ever delivering fulfillment. In Unplayable, this pursuit is not metaphorical but operational. Characters act, accumulate points, complete tasks, and unlock states that never conclude. Desire becomes something measured, narrated, and endlessly postponed.

An embedded large language model accompanies the simulation, generating internal monologues and narrative commentary in real time. The model does not interpret or intervene. Instead, it describes, scores, and reinforces behavior, converting subjective experience into legible output. Over time, this produces a persistent monologue of pain, not as a dramatic event or breakdown, but as an ordinary consequence of participation within a smoothly functioning system.

The viewer manual contextualizes the actions, icons, and spaces that structure this world. It explains how environments are organized, how tasks are prioritized, and how time itself behaves inside the simulation. Linear progression gives way to recursive loops. Movement produces activity without change. Each cycle reinforces the same conditions while maintaining the appearance of agency and choice.

Rather than offering critique from the outside, the manual adopts the language of instruction, guidance, and clarity. It maps the system carefully and without irony, allowing its logic to reveal itself through description. What emerges is not a failure state but a stable one: a simulation that runs correctly while keeping its characters suspended inside it.

Produced as an editioned, perfect-bound publication, Unplayable: Viewer Manual allows the system to circulate beyond the installation itself. It functions simultaneously as documentation, extension, and artifact, carrying the simulation’s logic into print and inviting readers to consider how similar structures operate within contemporary platform environments.